Hey guys,

I'm buying my first used car and it happens to be from someone out of state. Im sure there is a simple answer to this out there somewhere but I cannot seem to find it. My question is: what do I need to do to legally bring drive the car from the state I'm buying it in (Virginia) back to Pennsylvania? Any help is much appreciated.

 

Forgot to mention, I'll have the vehicle title and the bill of sale

 

A dealers plate, or if its possible to get a in transit plate from the DVM

 

Insurance.

 

I'm in PA and have bought cars from MD, NC, FL and OH. To drive it home, most states will issue a temporary or in-transit tag, as others have mentioned. The other option is to trailer it back, which I've done in a few cases. You turn in the VA title to PennDot for a PA title to be created at your local notary, AAA, etc. Some states will collect sales tax for which you will get a credit or refund towards the PA tax liability. Some don't. I don't think VA will since they use an annual personal property tax model for cars, not a sales tax, at least as far as I know. As sooner1 mentioned, insurance too but... in PA, your insurance will automatically cover the new purchase for 72 hours or something like that. Still not a bad idea to get it added to your policy before you go pick it up...

 

Thanks for the help guys. I'll be calling penndot to try to find an answer from them too. The temporary transit tag sounds like a good idea, I'll look into it.

 

I don't know how close the seller is to the PA line but... if they'd be willing to meet you somewhere right over the border, in PA, at a notary or AAA office, you'd save the hassle of dealing with the temporary/in-transit tag. You could take care of the PA title and registration right there... then get it inspected when you get home. The VA DMV is really the one you need to call to find out about getting it out of VA to PA, legally. Getting it titled and registered once you're back in PA is pretty straightforward and easy. Took about 20 minutes for our X5 35d we bought in OH in February. It took a few weeks for the OH DOT to issue the OH title and mail it since we'd bought it CPO at a dealer. Once I had that... took that, the sales receipt, insurance, etc. to a notary and had the registration and title done quickly.

BTW... If you've got a lien on it... PA upped the fee substantially in the last year or so to record a lien on the title. It's like $40 or $50 now... Used to be less than $20, as I recall. The last governor bragged about not raising taxes but the fees for everything from auto registrations to fishing licenses went up quite a bit...

 

Thanks lateapex,

The only issue is that the woman is selling it for her husband who is stationed oversees so they didn't bother renewing the registration since they wouldn't be driving it, so she can't meet me.

 

Must have been a republican governor

Telcoman

 

throw an old plate on it and drive it back (if you get pulled over you have the bill of sale and the title youll be just fine)

make sure they give you the title signed

when you get back here go to a notary tell them you paid xxx

save on tax $

the end